Origen of Alexandria on Free Will and the Hardening of Pharaoh’s Heart

There are in the Scriptures ten thousand passages that very clearly prove the existence of free will. But some sayings of the Old and the New Testaments incline us to the opposite conclusion, namely, that it is not in our power whether we keep the commandments and are saved or transgress them and are lost. Therefore, let’s bring forward some of these sayings and explain them.

Now many people have been troubled by the story of Pharaoh. In dealing with him God says several times, “I will harden Pharaoh’s heart” (e.g., Ex 4:21; 7:3). If he is hardened by God and because of being hardened sins, he is not himself responsible for the sin. And if this is so, Pharaoh has no free will.

Let’s begin with the statements made about Pharaoh, that he was hardened by God in order that he might not let the people go. Now these statements are used by some of the heretics, who practically destroy free will.

God, in order to display his mighty works for the salvation of the many, needs Pharaoh to proceed to a further degree of disobedience and hardens his heart for this reason.

Let us consider how God, who is good and just, could harden Pharaoh’s heart. It is not his purpose to harden. Rather, he acts with kindness. The hardening follows as a result of the evil present in that evil person, so that God is said to harden the one who is already hardened.

In fact, Pharaoh’s heart experienced some softening when he said, “You shall go a three days’ journey and leave your wives behind” (Ex 8:27-28). This makes it clear that these signs [= the plagues] had some effect even on him, though they did not entirely accomplish their objective.

Accordingly, Paul, after clearly examining this question, says to the sinner: “Do you despise the riches of his goodness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? But your hardness and impenitence of heart stores up for yourself wrath for the day of wrath and revelation and the righteous judgment of God” (Rm 2:4-5). Let what the apostle says to the sinner be applied to Pharaoh. His hardness would not have been proved and made clear unless the signs had been performed, and performed on so large and grand a scale.

God abandons most people by leaving them unpunished, in order that, from their free will, each person’s character may be proved and the better may become clear as a result of their testing. The others remain unnoticed (not by God, for he knows all things before they come to be) but by the rational creation and themselves, in order that they may find the way of healing at a later time. For they would not have known the benefit unless they had first condemned themselves.

This method is of advantage to each person that they may become aware of their own individual nature and of the grace of God. The person who is not aware of their own wickedness and of the divine grace, if they receive a benefit before they have had experience of oneself or condemned oneself, will [wrongly] think that what is given them by heaven’s grace is due to their own good works. This produces conceit and pride and will become a cause of their downfall.

So the person who is abandoned, is abandoned by the divine judgment. Towards certain sinners God is patient, not without reason, but because it will be to their advantage in regard to the immortality of the soul and the Eternal World. The goal is not to help them quickly to salvation but to bring them to it slowly, after they have experienced many ills. It is like doctors when they consider it better to let a sick person remain in fever and sickness for a long time, so that they may eventually regain permanent health, rather than appear to restore quickly to strength, then afterwards relapse and the quick cure prove only temporary.

In the same way, God, who knows the secrets of the heart and foreknows the future, perhaps in his patience allows the hidden evil to remain, while he draws it out through external circumstances [= the misfortunes of life]. The goal is to purify the person who through carelessness has received into oneself the seeds of sin: they will come to the surface and be vomited out, even if the person has proceeded far in evil deeds. In the end, they will be able to obtain purification after their evil life and be renewed. For God deals with souls not in view of the fifty years or so of our life here on earth but in view of the Endless World.

So no one’s heart was created stony by God: it becomes such by wickedness.

God knows how, by means of the great plagues and the drowning in the sea, he is leading even Pharaoh. His superintending care for Pharaoh does not stop here. For when he was drowned, he was not destroyed. “For both we and our words are in the hand of God” (Wis 7:16). This, then, is a fair defense of the statement that “Pharaoh’s heart was hardened” (Ex 10:20) and of Paul’s statement that “God has mercy on whom he wills, and he hardens whom he wills” (Rm 9:18).

Origen, On First Principles, 3.1.6-14 (abridged and adapted by Dr. Adam Rasmussen from G. W. Butterworth’s translation (Harper & Row, 1966)